She’s On Sale is a captivating, artistic portrayal of ideal beauty and female identity in contemporary consumer culture. In her fourth solo exhibition, local artist Meaghan Coles explores the objectification of the female face in popular advertising.
Coles’ exhibition consists of a series of mixed media artworks displayed at the stylish and intimate Gallery on Waymouth. From afar, the works appear to be a sequence of enlarged beauty advertisements out of a fashion magazine, but up close it is clear that there is much more to the works – both technically and conceptually.
Coles takes faces of female beauties from magazines and re-creates them into works of art, symbolically restoring them and giving them an individual identity. She asks the viewer to consider how the female face functions when taken out of mass-production and transferred into a fine art context.
Working with both abstract and figurative techniques, Coles combines traditional oil painting with experimental spray enamel and resin. While the faces of her female subjects are painted in a realist manner – with smooth brushstrokes in neutral skin tones – they are fragmented along the outer areas. For example, in Eye Intensifying, most of the face is painted in great detail, while expressive brushstrokes have been applied to the outer regions, challenging the notion of the flawless, airbrushed faces in magazines. The use of accidental techniques such as dripping and spray painting similarly give the works a sense of imperfection.
‘My works wouldn’t have the same depth of individuality if they were painted in a realist manner…I do not want to just copy the image, but create marks through contrasted colour and accidental techniques,’ Coles explains.
Although certainly not the largest or grandest, I found Youthful Spirit to be one of her most striking works. This painting is far more exaggerated and intensified than the other works in the exhibition, through the use of harsh lines, bold colours and violent brushstrokes. The face is almost clown-like – pale, with blood-red lips, flushed cheeks and dark shadows. This work, in particular, seems to break through the notion of ideal beauty to reveal something more sinister beneath.
Coles’ works are multi-layered and collaged as she incorporates text and magazine clippings, drawing parallels to the decorated pages of fashion magazines. She has recently begun experimenting with resin, giving her works a glossy finish, mimicking that of the ‘glossy magazine’.
Coles paints on various surfaces, such as canvas and wooden board. She explains that, although board can be more difficult to paint on, it is her preferred surface ‘for the natural, raw, un-perfected appearance it has against lush paint.’ This is evident in the work From This Month, where natural knots in the wood are visible through the paintings, acting as blemishes or imperfections.
‘The board enhances the idea of opposing the perfected, airbrushed beauty,’ she explains. ‘It is a natural, unique starting point compared to the traditional white canvas.’
Having graduated from UniSA’s South Australian School of Art with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours), Coles has experimented with a variety of painting styles, but portraiture has always been her artistic leaning.
‘The colours in the female face taken from fashion magazines particularly interest me,’ she says. ‘I’m fascinated by the way the female face is portrayed in advertising, reduced to a sexualised, superficial object, devoid of human emotion.’
She’s On Sale is on display at the Gallery on Waymouth until March 18, so stop by for a drink and enjoy a unique taste of local art presented by a talented, up-and-coming artist.
